How the Illawarra's disability enterprises are fighting for their futures

Do disability enterprises - which employ hundreds of people in the Illawarra - represent segregation and restrict the path to a more inclusive Australia, or do they provide necessary and meaningful employment opportunities?

The seven commissioners of the Disability Royal Commission are split on this question: three want these organisations, known as Australian disability enterprises (ADEs) phased out by 2034.

ADEs provide separate employment to people with disability who need significant support, largely those with intellectual disability.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, on a visit to Wollongong ADE Greenacres on Thursday, said the government had not yet released its position but personally he saw "a role for supported employment".

"Now I do think people should be paid properly, and they are, but I think that some people and families choose here because otherwise open employment opportunities are not available," Mr Shorten said.

"And I think coming here is better than sitting at home, doing nothing and being isolated.

"You only have to look at the pleasure people have here about friendship groups, a sense of identity, a sense of social connection, so I do think ADEs have a role."

But Mr Shorten said it was important to ensure there were better opportunities in open employment.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows 53 per cent of people with disability aged 15 to 64 were in the workforce in 2018, compared to 84 of people without disability - a labour participation rate the royal commission reports "has not changed substantively since 1993".

Greenacres chief executive officer Chris Christodoulou said the organisation supported the choice of people with disability to work where they felt secure and included, and for many that was open employment.

He said that was why Greenacres had introduced options such as its cafes for supported employees.

Some employees have worked in open employment but returned; one man recently told the Mercury he felt safe at Greenacres when he'd not been treated well elsewhere.

Rodney Clark, the CEO of another Illawarra disability enterprise, the Flagstaff Group, said such organisations provided meaningful employment for people with disability.

"For a person living with a disability to be able to come to work and get paid for a day's work, but also to be able to have self-worth," Mr Clark said.

Such workplaces offered people the ability to be among others with similar challenges, he said, and form friendships.

"We have some employees who will look for opportunities in open employment and we will support them to achieve those goals," Mr Clark said.

"But we also have other employees who will want to stay working with us at Flagstaff and we've got employees who have been with us for 40 years."

He rejected the characterisation by some commissioners of ADEs as a form of segregation, saying 270 employees had disability but there were 480 staff in total on the payroll.

Mr Christodoulou also denied segregation, saying employees worked among others without disability and engaged with the broader community on the way to and from work.

"For many of [the workers] that have been out into the community, some have actually felt quite excluded because people are not engaging with them," he said.

"Whereas when they come here, they're engaged with all the time, whether it's by a person without a disability or a person with a disability."

In the royal commission's final report, two commissioners said inclusion could be achieved even when separation is involved, so long as people with disability could freely make their own decisions and their human rights were upheld.

Three of the six commissioners described disability enterprises as segregation and viewed their ongoing existence as a breach of human rights.

They recommend transforming ADEs to social firms with open workplaces, where people with disability can still receive support, within a decade.

While they said segregation did not occur where people with disability came together voluntarily for a "common purpose", the inquiry heard that special settings for work, as well as housing and education, retained the characteristics of historical institutions that had denied people with disability their autonomy.

"We consider that contemporary segregated settings continue to deny people with disability meaningful choice and control over key aspects of their daily lives, and prevent them from being included in mainstream settings," they said, listing ADEs among these segregated environments.

People with disability in segregated settings, the commissioners said, had experienced isolation, denial of choice and control, limited opportunities for growth, and even abuse and violence.

The commissioners said the nature of work and other factors in ADEs, such as power imbalances between staff and workers, could heighten the risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Associate Professor Linda Steele, a socio-legal researcher at the University of Technology Sydney who focuses on disability, has likewise described exploitation and abuse at ADEs due to the "closed nature" of these settings.

In a journal article, Dr Steele said people with disability experienced discrimination through lower wages and fewer career development opportunities.

"Disability segregated employment is exploitative because the organisations that operate these workplaces receive financial benefit from lower disabled labour costs and receipt of government disability funding to purportedly provide training and support their disabled workers," she wrote in the International Journal of Law in Context.

"Moreover, members of supply chains and consumers benefit from cheaper goods and services."

Dr Steele argued that ADEs could be "understood as a form of labour exploitation under modern slavery law".

In the disability royal commission report, the commissioners who wanted ADEs phased out described them as a hindrance to positive change.

"We consider that the continued presence of segregated settings is a significant barrier to the reform of mainstream settings as it reduces the imperative for, and affordability of, change," the commissioners said, describing it an "unconscionable" that segregation because of impairment remained a default policy.

The royal commission was unanimous in its recommendation to raise wages, initially to half the minimum standard wage, then full minimum wage by 2034.

Under the Supported Employment Services (SES) award, certain people with disability (including those in ADEs but not open employment) can be paid below the standard minimum wage applicable to other awards, on the assumption they may not be as productive.

The Australian Human Rights Commission told the royal commission this was inconsistent with international human rights conventions, noting no other employee could be paid below minimum wage on the basis of productivity.

"It is an affront to dignity to pay someone, who is as committed to their job as any other person (with or without disability), a subminimum wage," the disability royal commissioners said.

Mr Christodoulou said the existing framework decided upon by the Fair Work Commission was fair.

"Some people with disabilities have certain capabilities and they do work which might be described as fairly low value, others have good skills and are of higher value work, and their wages are paid accordingly," he said.

In a perfect environment, Mr Christodoulou said, it would be ideal to pay everyone the same wage but if that were required, it would make it difficult for Greenacres to do the work it did unless there was government assistance.

The royal commission has recommended the government establish a scheme to introduce an employer subsidy to bridge the gap between current wages and the recommended new minimum wage until 2034.

Mr Clark said Flagstaff was moving to the SES award which would grant a quarter of employees an immediate payrise.

He voiced concern about the impact of any wage increases on people's eligibility to receive the disability support pension, which afforded not only financial support but access to other benefits.

Mr Shorten said raising wages was a "whole of government decision".